Petals On The Wind
by blacksouledbutterfly
Summary: She watches him sometimes, sitting up on the catwalk, legs dangling over the edge, the cool of the metal making her feel chilled down to the core. Pre-Rayne


She watches him sometimes, sitting up on the catwalk, legs dangling over the edge, the cool of the metal making her feel chilled down to the core. She'd swing her legs back and forth as she looked down below her, mostly at him but also at the others as cargo came in and came out. It was an interesting thing, looking at the people who moved back and forth like little ants.

There was a pattern to the whole thing, a way that they went about things that was so structured that she couldn't help but be fascinated by it; there was a rhythm, a pattern she could easily pick up on. Structured movements, practiced happenings. All so easy to understand; all so easy to follow.

Most of the time she preferred to just watch him, to take in the expressions that would flicker across his face, the way he'd lift up the boxes and set them down wherever he was told to. He could play the part of the good little worker rather easily when he was nothing of the sort; he could pretend to be subordinate when he had more of a mind of his own than anyone else in the world that she had ever met. He was independent. He merely played the part of being a good little soldier who followed orders. (He would pretend also, however, that he didn't care much about the rest of the crew, that if they died it wouldn't mean a damn thing for them. She knew better than that though, knew that he would protect the whole ship with his life. It was in his head, dancing around like petals on the wind.)

She knows that he knows that she watches him. She knows that the knowledge is there, in the front of his brain even though he doesn't tend to acknowledge that she's even there. He goes about his business, unloads cargo, loads it up, lifts his weights. His gaze doesn't venture up to the slip of a girl kicking her bare feet back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Before he would have had a problem with her being there, would have complained about her lurking about. He would have said she was bothering him or making him uncomfortable or made some other excuse of the like for why he didn't like her gaze on his. It would have made him twitchy, jumpy; it would fill him with unease he would struggle to hide. (He wasn't as good at hiding it as he believed that he was.) But he had grown used to the slip of a girl flittering about around the ship, hair flying around behind her, skipping across the metal grates, dancing along to music that no one else could hear, watching him with large, deep, endless eyes.

He lets her sit like that for weeks, watching him and curling her toes, uncurling them, curling them, uncurling them, picking at the hem of her sweater or tugging on a strand of hair, wrapping it around her finger and letting it fall back against her shoulder as she tugged her finger free of it like the hair itself was some big trap. He lets her stay there and watch him even though he doesn't understand it (he's stopped trying to a long time ago) and never says a word to her, never glances at her, just moves around with the heat of her gaze burning the skin on his back, half expecting the intensity of it to burn straight through and into his very soul. (If there is such a thing. He's not even sure that he believes there is one. Not even sure that it matters any either.)

"Ya jus' gonna sit there and watch me all the time?" he finally asks her one day. She startles, yanking her finger out of her hair hard enough that her head cocks awkwardly to the side, eyes widening marginally. (She had heard questions so similar in his head dozens of times but the deep gravel of his voice like he'd been gargling glass had been unexpected; a pleasure despite however startling to hear with her ears and not her head.)

"Possible," she replies, fingers going to the bottom of her sweater, fingers picking at the bottom. (It's already fraying. Simon will tell her to take better care of her clothes. She'll just let him tell her to do so and dance back across the grates to somewhere else in the ship, feet moving almost silently across the cool metal.)

He sits up from his spot on his workout bench, rests his thick arms on his legs, turns his gaze up to the little nutcase watching him, toes curled up, wide eyes now on the piece of clothing she's destroying. "Ain't you got nothin' better ta do than ta watch me all the ruddin' time?"

"No books, no engine pieces unknown. No new controls on the bridge. Bored of seeing Kaylee in Simon's head when he's near." She looks up at him, eyes somehow darker and yet the same color. "Most interesting thing to watch for now is the person asking questions of me right now."

He shakes his head a little bit, a soft chuckle escaping his mouth before he even realizes just how amusing the whole thing is to him. "That's pretty sad," he decides. "I ain't what ya call an interestin' kinda guy."

"Not true. Jayne-man focuses. Doesn't matter what he's doing. All the attention inside of him goes to it. Quite interesting."

"If ya say so."

"Not a matter of opinion. A tangible fact. People with eyes can all see it."

Sad thing about it is that lately, when she opens her mouth, she's becoming easier and easier to understand, like whatever had been turning her brain into noodles was suddenly gone. (Miranda had changed so many things that it was getting hard to keep up.)

"So, ya like to watch me, huh?"

"Affirmative."

He shakes his head a little bit, that chuckle escaping him again. "As long as ya ain't botherin' me I can't really tell ya to go, can I? Not like you'd listen to me now, would ya?"

"The probability of that does not seem to be in Jayne-man's favor," she concedes, a small smile slowly spreading across her face. "But he doesn't really mind being watched. He has known he was being watched for some time already."

He watches her quietly for a few moments, arms still resting on his arms, eyes focused on the crazy girl that's not go crazy anymore (not such a girl anymore either). He lets a rush of breath out of his lungs, rests himself back down. "Yeah, guess yer right," he admits.

The girl smiles again, uncurls her toes.

She picks at her sweater.

He lifts his weights.


End file.
